The Medieval Murderers - The Tainted Relic

‘It was saved with other relics, and taken to France, but there it was decided that this thing was too perilous: it could pollute other treasures. In preference, it was sent back to England, and it remained there safely in South Witham in obscurity, until the degenerate and avaricious King of France sought the destruction of the Temple. Then Johel and a few other men sought to defend the thing and protect others from finding it. When the preceptory was ordered to be closed, I was asked to come here to Exeter with a companion to give it to the good Bishop Walter, who was known to be an honourable man.’

‘But you were attacked?’

‘Footpads ambushed us at a river. They caught my companion and murdered him. They tried to kill me, but I escaped them, and defended myself against the man there in the bed. He fought well, and almost knocked me from my horse while his comrades fled. Then he too ran, trying to take a path through a stand of low trees where I could not follow on horseback. I left him, and went to my friend, but poor Tom was dead and his package was stolen. It was a disaster, the failure of our embassy.

‘So I continued alone. A short way beyond the little wood, I found this man. I would have killed him, but I needed to find the relic, and I thought he could tell me of its whereabouts. He agreed to tell me all he knew in return for my parole. If I protected him and brought him here, he would answer my questions.

‘This man told me that a companion of his had tried to kill him. For that he felt that he owed his erstwhile colleagues no loyalty. So he told me of the girl Annie. He loved her, and he wanted her to know he was alive. I found her and told her about the attack on her man, and she was enraged. She helped me, telling me of the whore Moll, and telling me where Adam and Will lived so that I could ambush them and find the relic. So this I tried to do.

‘The first night I went to the tavern and saw the men there. I tried to return to catch Will, but he escaped me in the dark. I remained up in Moll’s room. In the middle of the night, the brother of this man appeared, horrified. He had found Will’s body. I left then, determined to find the man and search his body.’

‘This was the middle of the night?’ Baldwin queried.

‘Yes. Moll persuaded him that it would be better to leave Will there and report the murder in the morning. Will had had his throat cut, and I went through his clothes but could find nothing on him. No relic. In a rage, I slashed at his corpse. He’d killed my friend Tom and robbed him, and now I couldn’t find Tom’s goods. I was enraged.’

‘You would have killed him.’

‘No. I wanted the relic, and I wanted to question him to learn where it was. I have no taste for murder. In the same way I tried to capture Adam. He was stronger than I expected, though, and didn’t fall when I struck him. In the fight, I had to kill him…and I think he has killed me.’

‘So we still don’t know who killed Will,’ Simon said. ‘Nor Moll, either.’

‘I killed neither,’ the injured knight said. ‘Who would kill Moll?’

Baldwin was silent for a moment. Then he bowed over the dying man. ‘You have done well, poor fellow soldier.’ He drew his sword, and showed the man the blade. There, outlined in gold, was the Templar cross. He had asked for it to be carved there when he had the sword made, and never had he been more proud.

Sir John de Mantravers peered closely, and then looked up at Baldwin. ‘Thank you, comrade.’ He kissed the cross and sank back with a grunt of pain.

‘Come on, then, Baldwin. Who would have killed Moll?’ Simon asked.

‘I have little doubt that it was Rob,’ Baldwin said. ‘I think he feared that she saw something on the day that Will was killed.’

‘So you think that Will was murdered by Rob?’ Jonathan asked.

They were near the Broad Gate, the great main entranceway to the cathedral, and Baldwin stopped here. ‘We may never know, of course, but I think that for our report we should assume that he was responsible for that as well. Clearly we may not enquire of him any longer, but who else would have had the motive? His brother had been leader of the band, and when his brother was stabbed, perhaps he thought that Will would take over. Maybe he thought the gang was his own inheritance? For whatever reason, he killed Will and then stabbed Moll in case she had seen something. Perhaps he thought she was a witness and couldn’t take the risk that she might report him?’

‘I see.’ Jonathan nodded. He gave the two men his thanks for their company, and walked in under the great gates. In a moment he was lost to sight.

Baldwin nodded to himself. ‘A pleasant enough fellow.’

‘And about as gullible as you could hope,’ Simon said more caustically. ‘So now, Baldwin, what really happened?’

‘Think of it this way, Simon. What reason was there for someone to kill Will? He was no real threat to anyone in the band. He had the others under control. When Adam wanted to get the relic, he didn’t fight with Will, but picked a fight with Tad instead. Adam himself recognized Will’s leadership.’

‘Rob could have killed him.’

‘True enough. He was a weak, ineffectual man, yet he still managed to attempt to kill his own brother when he thought that Andrew might take his woman. He could have tried to kill Will-but was there the desire? I think that someone else had more of a desire to see him dead.’

‘Who?’

‘Annie, Andrew’s woman. She loved him, from what Andrew said to Mantravers, and surely she would not have expected Andrew’s own brother to murder him; when she heard that Andrew was attacked and presumed dead, who would she have blamed? I think the first person would be Will. So she laid a trap for him, waiting in the alley. When he came near, she pulled his neck back and cut his throat.’

‘You think that she went back to kill Moll?’

‘Moll was sure she knew who had killed Will. She told you she was safe, didn’t she? That was because she felt sure that the killer was Robert or Adam, and she didn’t feel threatened by either of them. But she was wrong. One of them was quite prepared to kill her.’

‘Adam was a violent, dangerous man,’ Simon said thoughtfully. Then he shook his head. ‘Yet he didn’t kill anyone. He wouldn’t rise to fight Will when Will prevented him looking at the box, and we know that Robert was capable of murdering his own brother to keep his woman. It must have been him.’

‘Yes. He thought Annie could have been seen, so he went back to Moll’s house and killed her.’

‘What would make him think that she was a threat to him?’ Simon wondered.

Baldwin said nothing. His friend the bailiff was too dear to him for Baldwin to talk about the time when they had both been questioning Rob on that first day they had seen him, when Baldwin studied the pool of vomit and Simon went to the whore and spoke to her quietly. Baldwin could see the two of them now, young Moll looking at Simon with that saucy smile, every bit the practised wench; Simon himself grinning back and asking her who she might have seen or heard. A man as anxious as Rob would be sure to wonder whether that quiet conversation could have led to information being shared. No, Baldwin wouldn’t tell his friend.

But Simon’s mind was already on another matter. ‘So if this woman Annie killed Will, do you think we should have her arrested?’

Baldwin grimaced and shook his head. ‘What good would it do? She has managed to remove a felon from the streets. In fact her act of revenge for the stabbing of her man had the beneficial result that it removed four footpads from the roads about here. I think she deserves to be left to her own conscience.’

Exeter, January, 1324